Forty Hour Week
by BeckyH77
Summary: 'He wanted to shove the dirt and filth he wallwed in, in the face of every puritianical hypocrit who beneftied from the blood on his hands but wouldn't look him in the eye' repost with one small important change


Title: Forty-hour week.  
Author: BeckyHoadley@hotmail.com  
Rating: G  
Pairing: None. Snape-centric  
Summary: Under-appreciated and overworked. Can we blame him for being a bastard? I think not._  
_A/N: I have writer's block. What better way to recover than to engage in writing something else? I have a guilty little secret. I adore song-fic. Absolutely totally adore it. Or fic based on song, more accurately. Hence I am indulging myself.  
__________________________________________________  
  
There are people in this country who work hard every day.   
Not for fame or fortune do they strive.   
But the fruits of their labor are worth more than their pay.   
And it's time a few of them were recognized.   
__________________________________________________  
  
Merlin, he was tired. No, Snape corrected himself, he had been tired eight hours ago _before_ the summons. His eyes were gritty and stung, his head throbbed painfully, every joint in his body ached. His muscles quivered uselessly and his stomach was unpleasantly mobile- churning and roiling, threatening to empty itself.  
  
With a sigh he sat down and rested his head in his hands for a moment trying desperately to order his thoughts. There was nothing more than he wanted to fall into bed and sleep for the next two days. He laughed mirthlessly to himself. Fat chance of that. No rest for the wicked and all that rubbish.  
  
He had been up since four O'clock the previous morning. He'd come in late and indulged in a few precious hours of sleep and had to wake early to finish preparing for the day's classes. He had taught all day, missed both lunch and diner in a mad dash to prepare for his midterms and failed miserably (they still weren't done) while overseeing two consecutive detentions. Then he had been summoned and spent the evening being listening to a megalomanic rant and been subjected to some tests' of his loyalty he'd rather not remember just now.   
  
When he'd finally made it home' to Hogwarts he'd briefed Albus for over two hours. He had showered, skipped breakfast in favor of prepping for class. As if any of the brats would care. They didn't listen, they were scared out of their wits of him... and he didn't blame them. He was not a pleasant man, and he didn't have the energy to _care_ that they feared and hated him. As long as they steered clear of him and managed to stay alive he honestly didn't give a damn. Let the others mother them and coo over them. He hadn't the energy or desire to.  
  
The Slytherins, HIS children, of course were another kettle of fish altogether. Caught between their parents and Voldemort and Dumbledore much as Snape himself was. They were cunning. They would survive, of that he had little doubt. What he did doubt was how exactly he was supposed to offer to them the suggestion, the idea that they did not have to necessarily follow their parents footsteps and kiss the hem of a mad man without destroying his cover and exposing himself. More than one of his students was reporting to their parents, waiting for their chance to take out Potter.  
  
Potter.... that damnable brat. Voldemort's white whale. His obsession and with luck his downfall. Before his return to spying he had disliked the boy's insolence, but now... Now he could not stand him. Potter had placed his life in the hands of Weasley and Granger. He hoped the boy was right to place his trust in them. If he was as lousy a judge of character as he was at potions, they were both surely dead.  
  
Snape didn't, at that moment, care about that either. Death sounded lovely actually. All that time to rest... but he couldn't rest. He had classes to teach, meetings to attend, reports to make, and students to very carefully guide. He had a razor to walk, and frankly it was becoming hard not to slip.   
  
Maybe tomorrow. Tomorrow was Saturday. Perhaps he could manage a few hours sleep then between the reports, meals, study halls, tutoring, detentions, Voldemort, and the Quidditch match it was his turn to referee. Then again, he thought bitterly as he reviewed the amount of student work piled on his desk waiting to be marked, maybe he should just take another potion and settle for finding time to eat.  
  
With a sigh he picked up the quill, dipped it into the inkwell and picked up a first years essay and began to correct it. To his exhausted mind the ink spilling across the parchment looked like blood on skin. It was, almost, pretty.  
  
  
After the twelfth paper he gave up and looked at his clock. There were twenty minutes until his first class arrived. He couldn't remember who he had first today. He just couldn't... think. He folded his arms and put his head down.   
  
He asked himself, not for the first time, why he was doing this. Why he bothered. Merlin knew that no one would ever see him as anything but a death-eater. Even if their side won there would be no acknowledgment of the spies.  
The ones who did the dirty work, the ones who walked into the darkness others didn't want to acknowledge. He was sullied and marked.   
  
He didn't want fame. He wanted to shove the dirt and filth he wallowed in in Albus Dumbledore's face. In the face of every pristine, puritanical hypocrite who benefited from the blood on his hands but wouldn't look him in the eye. He wanted to force them to really _see_ this as something other than black and white. To make this as _real_ to them as it was to him.   
  
To them it was about principals and saving nameless, faceless masses. He walked those damn battlefields every day and every night. He taught their children and he protected their families and homes. His repayment was exhaustion so profound he _lusted_ after sleep, craved it more than air. His repayment was their disdain and mistrust. Their disgust and their undisguised hatred and fear.  
  
He would, eventually, fail. His cover would shatter and he would be killed. He had no more doubt of that than he doubted that if he was remembered at all it would be as a Death-Eater. A traitor and spy. If he was lucky they would remember whose side he was on. Somehow he doubted he would be even that lucky.  
  
Without his awareness or permission he fell into deep, dreamless sleep.  
  
He woke up when his class arrived, more exhausted than before his fifteen minute nap. At least, he thought bitterly, he didn't have nightmares. When he did sleep, he slept well. He was simply too tired to dream, and it was perhaps the only blessing from the utter exhaustion that consumed him. 


End file.
